Discovering John Green

Nothing makes me appreciate opportunity cost more than the realization of what amazing literature I missed while attending college. Really. It's the only possible excuse I could have for not knowing an author like John Green for the first half-decade of his career. Sadly, I didn't have much time for pleasure reading while I was in school - probably because most of my classes involved journalism, English or German.

But anyway, an MLS friend of mine finally told me to read "Looking for Alaska." Well, anything by John Green, but I like to start with the debut work first, if I can.

And John Green is Stephen Chomsky meets Salinger meets Gabriel Zevin meets John Knowles. I'm not kidding, it is that good.



I can't remember the last time a book made me cry, laugh out loud, and ponder the meaning of life before I was halfway through it. Particularly in young adult.

"An Abundance of Katherines" is next.

Tiger! Tiger! (Or, the Stars My Destination)

Everyone has read, or at least heard of Huxley's "A Brave New World" and George Orwell's "1984." From there, the list of dystopian, futuristic novels goes on: Ayn Rand's "We the Living," Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451."

So why are those considered classic literature when Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" is not? The stigma of science fiction is a funny thing.

Originally published as "Tiger! Tiger!" in the U.K., the first title is much more fitting than the U.S. title "The Stars my Destination." The American title is much too soft, inviting for a novel centering on Gully Foyle, the most ruthless, single-minded criminal of the future.



Gully Foyle is so inhumane, truly a tiger, that it is impossible to sympathize with him. He is transformed so completely a mere few chapters in that you no longer recognize the man behind the mask.

With such a cruel main character, I was skeptical about getting through the book, but Bester's reputation did not disappoint. It is such a detached, clinical read that one can easily look beyond the horrors the characters endure to focus on the plot. Even the characters who are "normal" (e.g. not on a suicide mission of revenge) are easy to dismiss. The characters are not meant to mimic people, they are just vessels to get the point of the plot across - not flushed out or wholly developed personalities, but one-dimensional creations that Gully Foyle can easily and thoughtlessly destroy.

It was a much faster read than I expected, too. Highly recommend it for anyone into dystopian novels or science fiction.

Gabrielle Zevin's Debut

People seem to think it matters how a couple meets, but I have always been much more interested in how one parts. In general, I think endings tend to be more informative than beginnings. And yet, people love those meeting stories, even though they are all the same. It's always "a friend introduced us" or "I was in love with him from the moment I saw him" or "we were just friends."

I think that's why people love these stories actually. People love to hear them, because the stories are all the same-the stories remind us of ourselves.

Maybe ending stories are all the same, too. "I fell in love with someone else" or "I woke up one morning and I didn't love him anymore" or "She died" or "He died" or any combination therein.
--From Margarettown: a Novel, by Gabrielle Zevin


I read the first Gabrielle Zevin that most do: Elsewhere. It won some awards and can be found in just about any bookstore. From that point on, I was hooked. I followed it up with Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, her other young adult novel.

I finally dug a little deeper and came upon her adult stuff: Margarettown and The Hole We're In. I just finished Margettown, her first published novel. Vastly different from her YA stuff, a bit more raw and just as engrossing.



She is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors of all time. Margarettown is a love story. The story begins with the narrator, "N." writing to his daughter, Jane, to tell her about her parents met and fell in love - how"N." falls in love with Margaret Towne, really.

It sounds so ordinary when I sum it up that way; I don't know how else to succinctly sum it up without giving away too much. But it is so much more than a simple love story. It certainly doesn't really read like a romance (except for maybe about the first five pages). The book is harsh in its portrayal of how love can be, how hard it is to really know a person. Everything about the book is engaging, from the beautifully drawn characters and the variety of narrators to Zevin's gut wrenchingly honest observations on how fickle, yet true, love can be.

Blog Attempt ... 3?

OK, so, after some debate, I've come up with a better solution to the whole two blog-thing: combine them.

Eclecticbookwrm is winning, because all I ever do is blog about books anymore, and it is a much more appropriate URL than my newer book blog. So, I'm going to eventually getting around to deleting the more online-diary-type entries on this one, and will use this one going forward.

Voila. (Thus, Google Search problem is fixed).

It's been a while since I've updated either of these, but I'm working on that.

Until then.

Graceling by Kristen Cashmore

"Graceling" was a staff pick at Bookshelf at the Boatworks, this cute little indie bookshop in Tahoe City, so I picked it up for airport reading material.

Katsa is a 17-year-old, graced with special killing abilities. In rare cases, certain people in her country can be "graced" with anything - a special, extreme affinity for music or the arts, cooking. They can be mind readers, swimmers or fighters. For Katsa, she has been able to kill with her bare hands when her grace manifested itself when she was a young girl.

Though Katsa is royalty, her uncle, the king, has turned her into his own hired killer. It is on one of her missions that Katsa meets Po, another Graceling, and she is finally able to learn that she has more control of her own destiny than she realizes.

When it comes to finding good books to take on vacation, I am a lot more superficial than usual. I only grabbed "Graceling" because it was one of the thicker books on the YA shelf, and I wanted to get something that would last through the 10 hour day of traveling.

"Graceling" turned out to be one of the best young adult books I've read in a while (up there with Collins' the Hunger Games and Catching Fire). It can be kind of a challenge to find an author or series in the YA genre where plot, narrative and characterization all come together, and I think it does in this one.

And the best part? Cashmore did do a follow-up, "Fire," but it doesn't follow the same lead characters. It only takes place in the same world.

Looking forward to checking it out, soon.

Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy Series

Neil got me the first three of the Vampire Academy series for Xmas, so I took the first one with me to Tahoe, where I proceeded to read the first book in the four-hour plane ride to Vegas. (I've come to terms with the fact that I prefer young adult over most books ... particularly over what most normal adults read.).

So anyway, my standards for "quality literature" are probably considerably lower than most people's, but really: I was surprised at how completely engrossed in this series I was.

There is nothing particularly spectacular about it. I mean, it's written in coherent sentences and has a decent, easy-to-follow plot and fairly believable characters (certainly more than I can say for some vamp/fantasy series in YA ... that I still like. heh.). It was just a quick, engrossing read.

Vampire Academy is narrated by Rose Hathaway, a half human/half vamp (Dhampir) training to become her best friend, Lissa's, guardian (a royal Moroi vampire). Rose and Lissa are closer than most best friends -- they have a special bond where Rose can slip into Lissa's conscience and feel what she is feeling, see what she is seeing.

There are four in the series so far:

• "Vampire Academy"
• "Frostbite"
• "Shadow Kiss"
• "Blood Promise"
• The fifth in the series, "Spirit Bound," is coming out in May

I think this is my new favorite of the cheesy YA vampire series.  Mead can actually write, unlike some of the authors in YA.  Vampire Academy is Mead's only young adult series - she also authors two fantasy series -- one about a freelance shaman and the other, a succubus protagonist. They're on the list to check out.

Jasper Fforde

Just when I thought Jasper Fforde couldn't get any better ... I got to meet the guy.

I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, I mean he had everything going for him. He's Welsh ... he writes literary fiction and makes all kinds of references to make bookworms of every type happy (from Austen, Bronte, and Dickens to contemporary and romance) ... he's witty, hilarious and unique.

And during his tour for Shades of Grey, he stopped by Borders and I got to get my books signed.

Sigh.

So anyway, it made me start re-reading some of the Thursday Next novels. (Namely, the ones I hadn't read twice, already ... Skimmed through Well of Lost Plots again and then read Something Rotten and First Among Sequels).

I just completely love him, to the point that I can't give any coherent detail as to why I love him.

Not brain-washed, I swear.

Looking forward to checking out Shades of Grey, soon.

Incidentally, did you know that he actually wrote The Big Over Easy and the Nursery Crime Series before Eyre Affair?

Who knew?